Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish insists the club are realistic about the prospects of their up-and-coming young players and none will be thrown into the first team until they are ready.
All the hype prior to the goalless draw with Sparta Prague in the last-32 first-leg tie had surrounded whether 16-year-old prodigy Raheem Sterling would become the club's youngest player. Of all the youngsters on the trip, only Conor Coady made it on to the substitutes' bench.
Dalglish insisted it was not a public relations stunt, saying: "They are all deserving to be here. They are a bit young maybe to be pushed in but then if they were asked I'm sure they wouldn't have let us down through lack of effort. The most important thing is we have to be realistic. There was no way we were bringing them over hoping to get headlines."
He added: "We brought them because we needed them and if we didn't have to use them that was in their interest as well as ours, but if we did have to use them we could have."
Source: PA
